Originally used to advertise a line of children’s books, here Beardsley’s design announces the January 1895 issue of The Yellow Book. Brian Reade notes: “Such winged chairs were known as grandfather’s chairs, and Beardsley may have intended to represent a grandmother sitting in an appropriate chair and reading to her grandchildren from one of the books... The gown with its leg-of-mutton sleeves is of the Nineties, but the feather is in the mode of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Instead of age and maturity therefore Beardsley has formulated a disturbing sensuality in the features of the woman. This was the kind of negligent irony which repelled so many of his own generation” (Beardsley, p. 343). During his short life, Beardsley’s principal works were black-and-white illustrations, primarily for books and magazines. Additionally, he created several posters of great artistic merit.
Geo. H. Walker, Boston
literature: DFP-I, 9 (var); Beardsley, 335 (var); PAI-XCII, 132
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